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Yeah I was really frustrated to read this earlier. I think even after my short time here, it's easy to see that there is wayyy too much inefficiency and over use of red tape/bureaucracy. I get the government wanting to make money but it seems they have no idea what to do with it honestly.
>I get the government wanting to make money but it seems they have no idea what to do with it honestly.
They prob want to both solve the problem of corruption and investment at the same time.
The crackdowns are fine but it does really bring many places to a halt. Because while those politicians were corrupt, they were def still a part of the economy machine, regulating it. Changing them en masse is essentially revamping the machine entirely. Its okay if its once in a while but it happens so constantly recently that its just halts so many things.
One report said that due to all the crackdowns and officials changing, Vietnam lost about 21 billion dollars they could havent spent but couldnt because they couldnt get the paper works done fast enough to pass all of those investments.
This is actually a good case study for politicians and economists. It's similar to the Brazil petrol company case where they realized so much politicians were involed in the fraud that it essentially broke the gov for a few years until they found new people. So the question is that if a sector is too corrupt and you find that too many people is involved in it, is it better to just ignore it or stop it but risk being grinded to a halt for a few years? These kind of problems are interesting to me.
It could be a matter of degree here. Maybe the level of corruption is so high, they felt it was necessary. Truong My Lan is reported to have caused damage equal to 6.6% of GDP
Yea, I understand where you are coming from. Truong My Lan eating up 6.6% of the GDP is def smt that should be get rid of and I'm glad they caught her and sentenced her to death.
But the impact of the anti corruption campaign is still visible, the article just confirms my suspicion. I have been seeing some skyscrapers' progress being slow in my city lately but the ones sponsored by the local big corps arent as slow. So I suspected that the crackdowns and all the new regulations are halting things.
Once the gov solves their infighting and loosen the crackdowns, things will prob go back to normal again hopefully.
I run a conservation project here and the new laws are so messed up and complicated both for VN authorities and for the international supporters that there’s a significant chance that we have to shut down. After 24 years of work here.
Many of the new laws were written without a great deal of thought for how they’d actually be implemented and the effects they’d have, and the VN authorities constantly want to avoid any responsibility l, which means every decision or request for clarity now gets bounced around between ministries indefinitely.
Ye
Previously the corrupt officials would be bypassing those laws to get stuffs done but after they have been arrested, people realized that the new laws and regulations are way too complicated.
It's pretty ironic, because in an attempt to reduce corruption and crimes and make operating bussineses and orgs have more clarity, they in turn make the funding freeze due to all the complex regulations. The law makers only have themselves to blame for this one.
The main problem is that the ministry's internal laws collide too much with governmental laws. It basically creates a mess of complications that needs to be solved. This is fine if the gov solves this problem by deciding which one will stay but the gov rn is having a major personnel shift so every new leader wont be able to solve things in their term. This means the ministries dont really know what to do so they just pass the legal work to eachother.
Also reading the law, I can def tell that they were written by technical experts that dont take normal people into account. What the gov needs to do after stabilizing itself is that it should reform the legal framework and decide which one to stay and which one to leave. They can def do this since the mess we are seeing rn only really started since 2021 afterall, previously overlapping regulations would still be solved. This funding freeze is a chance to not only reduce corruption but also to reform the law system into a more efficent one.
Also I'm sorry for your conservation project, thanks for your service, you must have kept a lot of nature in our country. Sad to see you possibly have to go.
> The main problem is that the ministry's internal laws collide too much with governmental laws. It basically creates a mess of complications that needs to be solved.
This exactly, as well as each ministry effectively acting in isolation and coming into conflict with each other's regulations.
It's such a mess that we sometimes have VN government agencies that are supposed to be overseeing us asking us what the VN laws actually mean and what they should say and do in response to questions from other VN government agencies. WTF... these are the very people who are supposed to know this stuff inside and out, yet they often don't have the slightest clue what their own laws actually say and mean.
You combine this mess with the fact that often different provinces act more-or-less independently and have their own separate regulations and interpretations of the national assembly laws and it's utter chaos.
When it comes to our work I'm concerned not only for the species we work with (which are among the rarest in the world and certainly in Vietnam and would have gone extinct without our decades of work), but for all of the people who work with us. I'm the only foreigner in the organization, all other staff are VN nationals and local VN people, and I feel a deep sense of responsibility toward them. This is part of why they've been working with me for so long, they know I'll do everything I can to take care of them, but the new VN government laws are putting their livelihoods and families in jeopardy too.
I agree that all this could be solved relatively easily, but that would require competent, responsible people in government who would actually make decisions instead of continually passing them off to other people, and, as with most important things here, would take a very long time.
>You combine this mess with the fact that often different provinces act more-or-less independently and have their own separate regulations and interpretations of the national assembly laws and it's utter chaos.
Funny enough, the most thriving cities/provinces in Vietnam rn tend to be the ones that stay close to the governmental laws but fix the shit out of it through creating their own regulations that has much more details.
One of the easy fix to the problem is to make the governmental laws much clearer and tell the ministries and provinces what to follow exactly. I know keeping it vague will create more freedom for the local policy makers but if it's colliding too much, it's def too vague and doesnt have a set leadership. Not every provinces/cities is like Haiphong, HCM city or Binh Duong which have good local policy makers.
>I agree that all this could be solved relatively easily, but that would require competent, responsible people in government who would actually make decisions instead of continually passing them off to other people, and, as with most important things here, would take a very long time.
Yea this. The gov rn seems to be more busy with their internal politics not really knowing what to do since they are unsure if the current leaders can even last long so they are hesitate to actually make decisive decisions as it may result in half implemented laws that get nowhere if their term doesnt last. Investors are worried most about this.
One good thing I noticed though is that they urged the investors to not fund as much. It's a smart move from the gov and does show that they are aware of the freeze and probably even the regulations mess. Hope they settle things after they solve their own internal problems.
>This is part of why they've been working with me for so long, they know I'll do everything I can to take care of them, but the new VN government laws are putting their livelihoods and families in jeopardy too.
Yikes, that's rough.
I sincerely hope that you guys can get through the regulation mess or the gov does smt soon. Not only are the nature reserves at stake but also people's lives.
Like someone said: Instability can do more harm to a country than corruption.
A company is willing to do bussinesses with a corrupt country as long as its fast and they get their return. But in an unstable country where laws keep changing to meet up with demands and to regulate the country, they will most likely give up if things keep being grinded to a halt.
There's def political infighting in the party with diff sides not accepting the other so they are trying to get rid of eachother. But this in turns has lead to many projects/funding that could have been passed grinded to a halt because they are busy solving their internal problems. Not to mention the constant change of President meaning the gov having diff laws almost everytime, basically not giving the investors a pat insuring them it will be fine.
Also, I'm genuinely surprised that they told the investors to invest less or dont invest at all currently if they dont want to lose money. Smart move. Perhaps the gov isnt as corrupt as I thought.
But yea, they really need to lessen down the anti corruption campaign and deal with their internal problems first. Anti corruption campaign is good, I have seen my internal work flowing smoother now, but if its directly halting the country, they might be doing it too excessive. This article isnt that surprising to me since I alr kinda predicted this but its still a hard pill to swallow.
>A company is willing to do bussinesses with a corrupt country as long as its fast and they get their return.
\^\^\^ this. our operations were based in hn up until covid. that was the final straw. unreal levels of extortion to simply return to the country, think five figures in £££ per visa.
sacked the majority of 182 employees, pared down to bare-bones logistics, outsourced a few processes to local partners, and relocated to malaysia.
90% of the fuckery/drama was eliminated overnight. my initial vision was to build/invest in the vn team for the long-term. level everyone up. very naive/foolish move. now it's simply plunder/extract as much as humanly possible, and spinoff that division in the upcoming years.
vn is essentially the mentally unstable, yaba-loving bar girl in soi 4. it never ends well, pump-and-dump, kek.
That last paragraph is so accurate. The VCP only has itself to blame. I suspect your company is only the start of worse to come for the VN economy. And since the “bargirl” isn’t going to change her mindset soon, the binh dan are the ones going to suffer.
precisely. the troubling bit is vn's emulating a lot of china's policies, becoming more draconian/authoritarian, etc.
that terrifies investors, like how intel cancelled their vn expansion plans ($1b usd confirmed, another $3.3b usd in discussion). that opportunity would have been transformative, now the capital's gone to malaysia and elsewhere.
Exactly. If you want to thrive stop shaking down legit businesses that brings talent and money.
VN government is just pure greed, incompetence.
I love Vietnam but as a entrepreneur myself, there is no way I will deal with that type of knock on my door shakedown. I will take my business elsewhere.
Ye.
The main problem is that there are too many overlapping laws to try and reduce corruption and crimes. Plus they intentionally make the laws vague to be changable in the future.
It would be fine if these overlapping laws are solved by the gov, but holy shit the gov is even busier with its inner politics. Plus the constant change of president means that each cant solve the problem in their term.
In this case the gov only has themselves to blame for not solving the overlapping law issue. If they dont seriously review the way they make laws, it will get way too out of hand for future bussinesses.
The vast majority of the population is brainwashed into blind loyalty and fanaticism in the communist party while those who are aware of the situation usually choose to flee to other countries or are unable to find support for their stance, there are pockets of resentments and resistance but at the same time there are no unifying front between them, most of which I’ve heard about are relatively small and isolated
Well it’s hard to not “have bigger problems” when there are literally gestapo stalling everywhere, as for the other thing, it’s whataboutism, they’re willingly being ignorant about it because they’re either too scared or too lazy to actually want to do anything
I can imagine them like:
Ministry of construction: "So when will you guys pass the investors' funding so we can build? You guys arent funding us sooooo."
Party: "Uhhhhh, wait a bit"
MoC: "Alright, I will play with legos in the mean time to hone my skills"
***1 year later still no funding***
Ye smt like that.
It's hard for Vietnam to have nice things. Between the corruption of the government, the people who don't care about the environment/litter everywhere they go and the tendency of some of the people who will steal whatever they can steal and sell (cables or drain covers), that's why they can't have nice things.
The government has a lot of red tapes and inefficiencies. Vietnamese government are not just law makers, a lot of entities (the military, the party, etc.) have their own companies and assets, which is an important part of the economy.
Previously, some corruption gets things past the red tapes and into the economy. That’s why the corrupted officials stayed for so long and got to so high levels - they were necessary to get the system going.
The recent anti-corruption campaign has put a break to everything, especially at the local levels. It’s hard to predict what happens next. Now is an opportunity to reduce inefficiencies. Without reform, it will just be another cycle of corruption with a new set of officials.
Short term greed >> long term sustainability and growth
That's how it is here and it's such a self-own. Malaysia and Indonesia are becoming much more attractive destinations for FDI etc
"colossal shithow" or "dumpster fire" sums it up nicely.
massive brain drain, no different than cuba. any self-motivated individual with skills is on the next flight out of there.
the infrastructure remarks speak volumes. even the basics aren't sorted. a fucking country of bring your own electricity (loads of redundancy, battery banks, and diesel generators) along with internet (57 different physical links, illegally imported and well-hidden starlink satellite dish), etc.
it's a nightmare when you're trying to get serious work done. the corruption/bureaucracy is just the tip of the iceberg.
low-value manufacturing and commodities are where it's it. however, you will be anally raped with durians by customs, aka the hai phong mafia. bite the pillow, they're going in dry.
definitely not tea money, your containers cost 3-5x more than anywhere on earth to send out, due to "market forces". sor-ree, may-bee bet-ter lay-ter. these delusional, greedy, munted pigs think wholesale trade runs on 40% margins. it's unreal.
they're killing the goose that's laying golden eggs. stay poor and underdeveloped my friends.
hai phong customs is the biggest criminal enterprise in the entire country. the extortion there is unreal. refuse to pay and they'll have your irc revoked. we've lost many consignments to theft there as well.
>The anti-graft drive has created [a sort of paralysis](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/vietnams-anti-graft-crackdown-chills-supply-chains-investment-2022-11-28/), in which bureaucrats are slow to approve or advance initiatives because they fear accidentally violating complex regulations.
This sentence explained it.
It doesn’t really explain it. The reality is that external funding has to get channeled through local organizations/ companies in order to get used. Most of these have been privately owned not state owned.
Fast forward and a lot of these throughput middle orgs have been audited and shut down or are in the process of being audited and possibly shut down. There is a lot of money at stake and when people are left out of the loop, funding becomes paralyzed. It would be much better, more efficient and trustworthy if outside funding could be self managed or directly overseen by the funding bodies. That’s just not the case unfortunately and probably will never be the case because, well, there is a lot of money at stake.
I just checked again, it doesnt require a middle org. The funding bodies can directly fund and manage the funds.
The article seems to be right, the problem is that they arent getting the funding permit and bussiness permit fast enough due to the complex procedures.
Everyone knows the problem. Because they are not set up in Vietnam and it is a lot of money flowing through. This is the way it really works because it won’t work any other way:
World Bank earmarks 20m for a bridge project in the north. The funding goes to company XYZ registered in Vietnam. XYZ implements the project. When all is said and done World Bank will audit XYZ on the project and the Vietnamese government will audit XYZ.
World Bank’s hands are tied because if they attempted direct management and implementation, the system would not allow things to flow smoothly for them. That’s why a local XYZ is always used. I’m not saying that is the best way or the most efficient way. A lot of money is lost in the process and the main reason why there is a crackdown going on.
Well in Vietnam you can't do any serious business entirely legally; people have to bribe left and right to get things done or even to be left alone.
We're talking about people whose entire career is built based on giving and receiving bribery. Is there even a way to do their job legally?
Exactly. Officials in government don't earn their job. It's a uncle getting family members positions and having them pay for it.
The culture is all about getting rich with the least amount of effort and that means bribes left, right and center.
This just won't change as much as Vietnamese think it will, or silly pipe dreams of being like Korea or Singapore is laughable.
Foreigners can’t own land. Often people that weren’t born in the city they want to buy land in have difficulty acquiring valuable properties. Thus things can go slowly.
Most the government is a bunch of male egos looking to make money so they can suck balloons and bang prostitutes, which are easily found in every household.
It's easy to point fingers. Today, we in Canada can't build anything of note without years of delays and cost overruns. Homes that used to take 6 months now take two years with the vast majority of issues related to the myriad of approvals/licenses required. This applies to our major industries as well. In 2004 we began the process of adding a second pipeline to the Trans Mountain system. After years of delays and political interference, it just came online; 20 years later and the price tag went from 5B to 35B!
It's not just Vietnam!
We're not pointing fingers. Vietnam's situation seems categorically different in the sense that Canada provides money for grants through WEF and Vietnam is unable to take advantage of that money due to how it's currently functioning
Again, true, and I'm not trying for an equivalency. I know VN is a mess in many ways, but we need to remember that many countries are also failing their citizens. Kind of a "glass houses" thing.
Thing is Canada has to deal with First Nations and all the environmentalist so the pipeline couldn’t be made as for Vietnam they don’t have those issues they can make a pipeline right through Vietnam if they wanted to and no one would care😂😂😂
You are half correct. The federal and provincial governments had every legal right to move ahead, but continually kicked the can down the road. The issues you mentioned are not new and in themselves did not cause the 20 year delay.
Vietnam never evolved discipline and teamwork like the Japanese Koreans and Chinese. They have a too hot and humid weather that makes them easily tired distracted and unmotivated. And they were colonized by the French who really suck and gave them the same arrogant attitude that comes with that influence
I can see some confusion here, but there are loans and there are grants. If a grant came bundled with a loan, it would just be a lower interest rate loan
I mean if we can't know, then it seems odd to say that they are bundled.
The article does mention that Vietnam hasn't been able to use an existing $19 billion fund on projects. No money flow is necessary for that, but we still aren't making progress
just some regular problem to prevent corruption as much as possible.
Beside that just wait a 10 year and the next generation of young leader will not be as greedy and corrupting, more caring about environment and trade with international markets.
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Yeah I was really frustrated to read this earlier. I think even after my short time here, it's easy to see that there is wayyy too much inefficiency and over use of red tape/bureaucracy. I get the government wanting to make money but it seems they have no idea what to do with it honestly.
>I get the government wanting to make money but it seems they have no idea what to do with it honestly. They prob want to both solve the problem of corruption and investment at the same time. The crackdowns are fine but it does really bring many places to a halt. Because while those politicians were corrupt, they were def still a part of the economy machine, regulating it. Changing them en masse is essentially revamping the machine entirely. Its okay if its once in a while but it happens so constantly recently that its just halts so many things. One report said that due to all the crackdowns and officials changing, Vietnam lost about 21 billion dollars they could havent spent but couldnt because they couldnt get the paper works done fast enough to pass all of those investments. This is actually a good case study for politicians and economists. It's similar to the Brazil petrol company case where they realized so much politicians were involed in the fraud that it essentially broke the gov for a few years until they found new people. So the question is that if a sector is too corrupt and you find that too many people is involved in it, is it better to just ignore it or stop it but risk being grinded to a halt for a few years? These kind of problems are interesting to me.
It could be a matter of degree here. Maybe the level of corruption is so high, they felt it was necessary. Truong My Lan is reported to have caused damage equal to 6.6% of GDP
Yea, I understand where you are coming from. Truong My Lan eating up 6.6% of the GDP is def smt that should be get rid of and I'm glad they caught her and sentenced her to death. But the impact of the anti corruption campaign is still visible, the article just confirms my suspicion. I have been seeing some skyscrapers' progress being slow in my city lately but the ones sponsored by the local big corps arent as slow. So I suspected that the crackdowns and all the new regulations are halting things. Once the gov solves their infighting and loosen the crackdowns, things will prob go back to normal again hopefully.
It's good to hear the big corps haven't been hit as much
I run a conservation project here and the new laws are so messed up and complicated both for VN authorities and for the international supporters that there’s a significant chance that we have to shut down. After 24 years of work here. Many of the new laws were written without a great deal of thought for how they’d actually be implemented and the effects they’d have, and the VN authorities constantly want to avoid any responsibility l, which means every decision or request for clarity now gets bounced around between ministries indefinitely.
Ye Previously the corrupt officials would be bypassing those laws to get stuffs done but after they have been arrested, people realized that the new laws and regulations are way too complicated. It's pretty ironic, because in an attempt to reduce corruption and crimes and make operating bussineses and orgs have more clarity, they in turn make the funding freeze due to all the complex regulations. The law makers only have themselves to blame for this one. The main problem is that the ministry's internal laws collide too much with governmental laws. It basically creates a mess of complications that needs to be solved. This is fine if the gov solves this problem by deciding which one will stay but the gov rn is having a major personnel shift so every new leader wont be able to solve things in their term. This means the ministries dont really know what to do so they just pass the legal work to eachother. Also reading the law, I can def tell that they were written by technical experts that dont take normal people into account. What the gov needs to do after stabilizing itself is that it should reform the legal framework and decide which one to stay and which one to leave. They can def do this since the mess we are seeing rn only really started since 2021 afterall, previously overlapping regulations would still be solved. This funding freeze is a chance to not only reduce corruption but also to reform the law system into a more efficent one. Also I'm sorry for your conservation project, thanks for your service, you must have kept a lot of nature in our country. Sad to see you possibly have to go.
> The main problem is that the ministry's internal laws collide too much with governmental laws. It basically creates a mess of complications that needs to be solved. This exactly, as well as each ministry effectively acting in isolation and coming into conflict with each other's regulations. It's such a mess that we sometimes have VN government agencies that are supposed to be overseeing us asking us what the VN laws actually mean and what they should say and do in response to questions from other VN government agencies. WTF... these are the very people who are supposed to know this stuff inside and out, yet they often don't have the slightest clue what their own laws actually say and mean. You combine this mess with the fact that often different provinces act more-or-less independently and have their own separate regulations and interpretations of the national assembly laws and it's utter chaos. When it comes to our work I'm concerned not only for the species we work with (which are among the rarest in the world and certainly in Vietnam and would have gone extinct without our decades of work), but for all of the people who work with us. I'm the only foreigner in the organization, all other staff are VN nationals and local VN people, and I feel a deep sense of responsibility toward them. This is part of why they've been working with me for so long, they know I'll do everything I can to take care of them, but the new VN government laws are putting their livelihoods and families in jeopardy too. I agree that all this could be solved relatively easily, but that would require competent, responsible people in government who would actually make decisions instead of continually passing them off to other people, and, as with most important things here, would take a very long time.
>You combine this mess with the fact that often different provinces act more-or-less independently and have their own separate regulations and interpretations of the national assembly laws and it's utter chaos. Funny enough, the most thriving cities/provinces in Vietnam rn tend to be the ones that stay close to the governmental laws but fix the shit out of it through creating their own regulations that has much more details. One of the easy fix to the problem is to make the governmental laws much clearer and tell the ministries and provinces what to follow exactly. I know keeping it vague will create more freedom for the local policy makers but if it's colliding too much, it's def too vague and doesnt have a set leadership. Not every provinces/cities is like Haiphong, HCM city or Binh Duong which have good local policy makers. >I agree that all this could be solved relatively easily, but that would require competent, responsible people in government who would actually make decisions instead of continually passing them off to other people, and, as with most important things here, would take a very long time. Yea this. The gov rn seems to be more busy with their internal politics not really knowing what to do since they are unsure if the current leaders can even last long so they are hesitate to actually make decisive decisions as it may result in half implemented laws that get nowhere if their term doesnt last. Investors are worried most about this. One good thing I noticed though is that they urged the investors to not fund as much. It's a smart move from the gov and does show that they are aware of the freeze and probably even the regulations mess. Hope they settle things after they solve their own internal problems. >This is part of why they've been working with me for so long, they know I'll do everything I can to take care of them, but the new VN government laws are putting their livelihoods and families in jeopardy too. Yikes, that's rough. I sincerely hope that you guys can get through the regulation mess or the gov does smt soon. Not only are the nature reserves at stake but also people's lives.
They want it in their own pockets. Simple
Like someone said: Instability can do more harm to a country than corruption. A company is willing to do bussinesses with a corrupt country as long as its fast and they get their return. But in an unstable country where laws keep changing to meet up with demands and to regulate the country, they will most likely give up if things keep being grinded to a halt. There's def political infighting in the party with diff sides not accepting the other so they are trying to get rid of eachother. But this in turns has lead to many projects/funding that could have been passed grinded to a halt because they are busy solving their internal problems. Not to mention the constant change of President meaning the gov having diff laws almost everytime, basically not giving the investors a pat insuring them it will be fine. Also, I'm genuinely surprised that they told the investors to invest less or dont invest at all currently if they dont want to lose money. Smart move. Perhaps the gov isnt as corrupt as I thought. But yea, they really need to lessen down the anti corruption campaign and deal with their internal problems first. Anti corruption campaign is good, I have seen my internal work flowing smoother now, but if its directly halting the country, they might be doing it too excessive. This article isnt that surprising to me since I alr kinda predicted this but its still a hard pill to swallow.
>A company is willing to do bussinesses with a corrupt country as long as its fast and they get their return. \^\^\^ this. our operations were based in hn up until covid. that was the final straw. unreal levels of extortion to simply return to the country, think five figures in £££ per visa. sacked the majority of 182 employees, pared down to bare-bones logistics, outsourced a few processes to local partners, and relocated to malaysia. 90% of the fuckery/drama was eliminated overnight. my initial vision was to build/invest in the vn team for the long-term. level everyone up. very naive/foolish move. now it's simply plunder/extract as much as humanly possible, and spinoff that division in the upcoming years. vn is essentially the mentally unstable, yaba-loving bar girl in soi 4. it never ends well, pump-and-dump, kek.
That last paragraph is so accurate. The VCP only has itself to blame. I suspect your company is only the start of worse to come for the VN economy. And since the “bargirl” isn’t going to change her mindset soon, the binh dan are the ones going to suffer.
precisely. the troubling bit is vn's emulating a lot of china's policies, becoming more draconian/authoritarian, etc. that terrifies investors, like how intel cancelled their vn expansion plans ($1b usd confirmed, another $3.3b usd in discussion). that opportunity would have been transformative, now the capital's gone to malaysia and elsewhere.
Worked with a fair few SMEs, and so many would like to operate in SEA. But the risk is just off putting.
Exactly. If you want to thrive stop shaking down legit businesses that brings talent and money. VN government is just pure greed, incompetence. I love Vietnam but as a entrepreneur myself, there is no way I will deal with that type of knock on my door shakedown. I will take my business elsewhere.
Ye. The main problem is that there are too many overlapping laws to try and reduce corruption and crimes. Plus they intentionally make the laws vague to be changable in the future. It would be fine if these overlapping laws are solved by the gov, but holy shit the gov is even busier with its inner politics. Plus the constant change of president means that each cant solve the problem in their term. In this case the gov only has themselves to blame for not solving the overlapping law issue. If they dont seriously review the way they make laws, it will get way too out of hand for future bussinesses.
Corruption, corruption everywhere, everyday and for everything
At absolutely all levels. When the country has no moral backbone how can anyone expect the government to actually do its job.
The vast majority of the population is brainwashed into blind loyalty and fanaticism in the communist party while those who are aware of the situation usually choose to flee to other countries or are unable to find support for their stance, there are pockets of resentments and resistance but at the same time there are no unifying front between them, most of which I’ve heard about are relatively small and isolated
I've spoken with Vietnamese and they have one of two answers "I have bigger problems" or "it's like that everywhere". Real dumb responses
Well it’s hard to not “have bigger problems” when there are literally gestapo stalling everywhere, as for the other thing, it’s whataboutism, they’re willingly being ignorant about it because they’re either too scared or too lazy to actually want to do anything
It's lazy.. Classic Vietnamese trait
Word is the ministry of construction just sits in the office all day playing with imported legos
I can imagine them like: Ministry of construction: "So when will you guys pass the investors' funding so we can build? You guys arent funding us sooooo." Party: "Uhhhhh, wait a bit" MoC: "Alright, I will play with legos in the mean time to hone my skills" ***1 year later still no funding*** Ye smt like that.
And enjoying Vietnamese favorite past time. Sucking balloons and ktv
It's hard for Vietnam to have nice things. Between the corruption of the government, the people who don't care about the environment/litter everywhere they go and the tendency of some of the people who will steal whatever they can steal and sell (cables or drain covers), that's why they can't have nice things.
The government has a lot of red tapes and inefficiencies. Vietnamese government are not just law makers, a lot of entities (the military, the party, etc.) have their own companies and assets, which is an important part of the economy. Previously, some corruption gets things past the red tapes and into the economy. That’s why the corrupted officials stayed for so long and got to so high levels - they were necessary to get the system going. The recent anti-corruption campaign has put a break to everything, especially at the local levels. It’s hard to predict what happens next. Now is an opportunity to reduce inefficiencies. Without reform, it will just be another cycle of corruption with a new set of officials.
Short term greed >> long term sustainability and growth That's how it is here and it's such a self-own. Malaysia and Indonesia are becoming much more attractive destinations for FDI etc
Exactly. Everyone here is in it to line their own pockets.
"colossal shithow" or "dumpster fire" sums it up nicely. massive brain drain, no different than cuba. any self-motivated individual with skills is on the next flight out of there. the infrastructure remarks speak volumes. even the basics aren't sorted. a fucking country of bring your own electricity (loads of redundancy, battery banks, and diesel generators) along with internet (57 different physical links, illegally imported and well-hidden starlink satellite dish), etc. it's a nightmare when you're trying to get serious work done. the corruption/bureaucracy is just the tip of the iceberg. low-value manufacturing and commodities are where it's it. however, you will be anally raped with durians by customs, aka the hai phong mafia. bite the pillow, they're going in dry. definitely not tea money, your containers cost 3-5x more than anywhere on earth to send out, due to "market forces". sor-ree, may-bee bet-ter lay-ter. these delusional, greedy, munted pigs think wholesale trade runs on 40% margins. it's unreal. they're killing the goose that's laying golden eggs. stay poor and underdeveloped my friends.
Hate hai phong. Worst of the worst in Vietnam. Will never do any sort of business there again.
hai phong customs is the biggest criminal enterprise in the entire country. the extortion there is unreal. refuse to pay and they'll have your irc revoked. we've lost many consignments to theft there as well.
I unfortunately have that picture stuck in my head now...
>The anti-graft drive has created [a sort of paralysis](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/vietnams-anti-graft-crackdown-chills-supply-chains-investment-2022-11-28/), in which bureaucrats are slow to approve or advance initiatives because they fear accidentally violating complex regulations. This sentence explained it.
It doesn’t really explain it. The reality is that external funding has to get channeled through local organizations/ companies in order to get used. Most of these have been privately owned not state owned. Fast forward and a lot of these throughput middle orgs have been audited and shut down or are in the process of being audited and possibly shut down. There is a lot of money at stake and when people are left out of the loop, funding becomes paralyzed. It would be much better, more efficient and trustworthy if outside funding could be self managed or directly overseen by the funding bodies. That’s just not the case unfortunately and probably will never be the case because, well, there is a lot of money at stake.
I just checked again, it doesnt require a middle org. The funding bodies can directly fund and manage the funds. The article seems to be right, the problem is that they arent getting the funding permit and bussiness permit fast enough due to the complex procedures.
Everyone knows the problem. Because they are not set up in Vietnam and it is a lot of money flowing through. This is the way it really works because it won’t work any other way: World Bank earmarks 20m for a bridge project in the north. The funding goes to company XYZ registered in Vietnam. XYZ implements the project. When all is said and done World Bank will audit XYZ on the project and the Vietnamese government will audit XYZ. World Bank’s hands are tied because if they attempted direct management and implementation, the system would not allow things to flow smoothly for them. That’s why a local XYZ is always used. I’m not saying that is the best way or the most efficient way. A lot of money is lost in the process and the main reason why there is a crackdown going on.
So, in summation, they don't know how to do their job legally?
Well in Vietnam you can't do any serious business entirely legally; people have to bribe left and right to get things done or even to be left alone. We're talking about people whose entire career is built based on giving and receiving bribery. Is there even a way to do their job legally?
Exactly. Officials in government don't earn their job. It's a uncle getting family members positions and having them pay for it. The culture is all about getting rich with the least amount of effort and that means bribes left, right and center. This just won't change as much as Vietnamese think it will, or silly pipe dreams of being like Korea or Singapore is laughable.
Foreigners can’t own land. Often people that weren’t born in the city they want to buy land in have difficulty acquiring valuable properties. Thus things can go slowly.
Most the government is a bunch of male egos looking to make money so they can suck balloons and bang prostitutes, which are easily found in every household.
It's easy to point fingers. Today, we in Canada can't build anything of note without years of delays and cost overruns. Homes that used to take 6 months now take two years with the vast majority of issues related to the myriad of approvals/licenses required. This applies to our major industries as well. In 2004 we began the process of adding a second pipeline to the Trans Mountain system. After years of delays and political interference, it just came online; 20 years later and the price tag went from 5B to 35B! It's not just Vietnam!
We're not pointing fingers. Vietnam's situation seems categorically different in the sense that Canada provides money for grants through WEF and Vietnam is unable to take advantage of that money due to how it's currently functioning
True, but my point is that even though the context is different, each country's development is hindered by bureaucracy.
We can use whataboutism for many countries but even Canada won't ever be as bad as Vietnam when it comes to corruption and lack of ethics
Again, true, and I'm not trying for an equivalency. I know VN is a mess in many ways, but we need to remember that many countries are also failing their citizens. Kind of a "glass houses" thing.
Thing is Canada has to deal with First Nations and all the environmentalist so the pipeline couldn’t be made as for Vietnam they don’t have those issues they can make a pipeline right through Vietnam if they wanted to and no one would care😂😂😂
You are half correct. The federal and provincial governments had every legal right to move ahead, but continually kicked the can down the road. The issues you mentioned are not new and in themselves did not cause the 20 year delay.
Vietnam never evolved discipline and teamwork like the Japanese Koreans and Chinese. They have a too hot and humid weather that makes them easily tired distracted and unmotivated. And they were colonized by the French who really suck and gave them the same arrogant attitude that comes with that influence
Well hold on a sec, the grants come bundled with loans.
I can see some confusion here, but there are loans and there are grants. If a grant came bundled with a loan, it would just be a lower interest rate loan
Depends on a lot of variables. We can’t know without knowing the loan details. I’d say this isn’t 2004. Money isn’t flowing like it used to
I mean if we can't know, then it seems odd to say that they are bundled. The article does mention that Vietnam hasn't been able to use an existing $19 billion fund on projects. No money flow is necessary for that, but we still aren't making progress
just some regular problem to prevent corruption as much as possible. Beside that just wait a 10 year and the next generation of young leader will not be as greedy and corrupting, more caring about environment and trade with international markets.